


We Enter, Drunk With Fire

by interstitial



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brief Mention of Ruby/Sam Winchester, Episode: s04e11 Family Remains, Fixing Up Yur Medical Education Errors, Fluffy Christmas Center Inside A Delicious Shell of Angst, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, I'm In Yur Canon, Implied/Referenced Alastair/Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam and Dean Would Know Way More Field Medicine- Don't @ Me, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstitial/pseuds/interstitial
Summary: Dean killed a kid a week ago, he's got a fever and a nasty wound infection, and now Sam's in a huge snit too. Merry Christmas. At least it's better than Hell.





	We Enter, Drunk With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in S4, after Dean’s history with torture comes out in _Heaven and Hell_ and _Family Remains_. Many thanks to [TFWBT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TFWBT/pseuds/TFWBT), whose suggestions made this a much better fic.
> 
> Warnings: References to torture, Implied past noncon Alastair/Dean Winchester, canon-typical gendered insults, drug use not as prescribed.

Dean’s brother is a big, fat jerk.

Okay, sure, Dean usually leads with ‘bitch’; Sam's got that ridiculous hair, and he whines like a princess when his pillow is too lumpy, or when the waitress brings him the wrong flavor smoothie. In fact, he whines pretty much nonstop these days, and it's not as cute as it was when he was seven and it was about stuff Dean could actually fix. But the fact of the matter is, Sam can be a huge jerk too when he puts the effort in.

Case in point: Dean is going to Hell, and Sam won’t let him drive.

“You’re not going to Hell. You’re going to-” -there’s a pause while Sam rounds a tight corner and pulls into a deserted parking lot- "Caremark Mega-Drug and Specialty Medical Supply.”

“'lastair said he wan’s me back,” Dean points out. Perfectly reasonably, if you ask Dean. Which Sam hasn't.

Sam pulls right up to the front of the store and slams Dean's baby into park in the fire lane. “Yeah, well, I want Alastair’s head on a plate beside Lilith's for Christmas. Looks like neither of us is gonna win the lottery."

Baby's wipers thwap across the windshield, sweeping snowflakes off the glass. It's too warm for real snow, the kind that sticks, so it all turns to ice cold puddles and slush the minute it hits the ground. It's pretty enough in the air though.

"We're outta percocet."

Sam looks at him all judgeylike. "You're high as a kite already, Dean."

"Am not," Dean says. He adjusts his weight off his left butt cheek for the thousandth time since they left Stratton. When that Gibson kid'd jumped him, it'd been so cramped and dark, and the kid'd been a hurricane of violence, knees and feet and teeth all over Dean while Dean'd worked desperately to disarm him. Got Dean in the back of the thigh with a knife somehow, and Dean hadn't even noticed. Just a nick, and it barely bled, so he'd slapped a half-assed dressing on it when he got back to the hotel, and gone about his business.

But now instead of all healed up like it should be, his leg's hot and red, and swollen like an enormous ugly sausage from below his calf all the way up into his groin. He couldn't get his jeans over his thigh this morning, and was reduced to wearing sweats, and now even the sweats feel kinda tight.

And holy crap, does it burn like hellfire.

Sam scowls, and asks how many percocet Dean took. He claims he'll introduce them as Agents Cheech and Chong next case if Dean doesn't slow down on the self-medication. But Dean only took two, and Sam scowls even harder when Dean says so. He puts a hand on Dean's forehead and then threatens him with the hospital and tells him to sit in the car and wait like a child.

Obviously, Dean is not gonna wait in the car. _No 'fense, Baby,_ he says, and pats her dashboard, so she'll know he means it. It's just, he doesn't like to feel useless. It makes his skin crawl, like it would when Alastair'd put the point of his favorite knife to Dean. Not cut him- though he'd always do that later- just stroke him with it, draw on him in the raised pink lines of sharp edge against skin, like Dean's body was still a real thing, and his soul should believe it still lived there.

Sam slams Baby's door. He's been in a snit since Stratton, and Dean can't read him the way he used to, so he's not sure why. He stalks up to the giant grocery store of drugs and plants himself in front of it like he's daring the cops to take notice. His hunched back is a wall of perfect Sam pissiness storm as he starts in on picking the lock.

Dean scoots his good leg out the Impala's door without much trouble, but the bad one doesn't want to go. He has to grit his teeth and grab it underneath, behind the knee, and breathe through the pain while he manhandles it into position. He lines his feet up next to each other and gingerly puts some weight on the bad foot.

Oh wow, that is really unpleasant.

It's totally unfair for a tiny little scratch from a feral teenager a third Dean's weight to hurt this much.

He levers himself out of the Impala with one hand on the seatback and one on the bench next to his butt. At this rate, Sam'll have the entire pharmacy emptied out before Dean manages to stand the rest of the way up.

He gets most of his weight on his good foot, so that’s pretty awesome, except then his bad foot slips forward on the slushy pavement, and he only avoids falling by grabbing Baby's door frame. The world spins like a tilt-a-whirl at an amusement park while he tries to recover, and little colored fireflies swarm around in the dark in front of his eyes.

Sam'd be pissed if Dean fainted on the tarmac, so then he has to sit back down, which is the exact same trial as standing up was, only backwards. He tries to grapple his lower leg back into the car, but it's tough when his upper leg won't do what he tells it, especially now that he's dizzy too. He sits there slumped sideways half out the open door, with one arm squished against the bench seat back, and his head lolled over to the side like the corpse he used to be, because it's too much work to hold it up. There's drifting black smoke at the edges of his vision, and it makes his heart pound, pumping him full of adrenaline he's got no use for.

He distracts himself by going through his mental list of muscles of the human body- not torture stuff or anything, just basic anatomy and physiology. It's a little morbid, sure, but he got in the habit when Alastair was teaching him; took his mind off the pain, and now he's just used to it. The night sky is kinda pretty with the fireflies, and he hopes Sam is right that he's not going back to Hell. There was never any night sky there at all, and besides, Alastair's even worse relationship material than Dean is. _'We were so close in Hell',_ Dean's ass.

And then somehow Sam is back and is lifting him right way around into Baby's shotgun seat, and rearranging his legs so gently it barely hurts. Like, not enough to register on the Winchester pain scale at all, so that's pretty helpful, Dean has to admit. But he's in the middle of thanking Sam (maybe a little effusively, because fever always makes him loopy, so sue him), when Sam says _okay okay, sure, Dean, you're welcome; here, have a levaquin_.

He holds out a pill big enough to choke a Clydesdale.

"No way am I takin' that thing without a beer to wash it down."

Sam rolls his eyes and breaks the giant mutant pill in half. He's standing in a puddle of slush that looks like an ocean shrunk down and filled to the brim with icebergs, and snow is falling on his bare head and hands and inadequate jacket, and when he levels Dean with some uncanny version of his combo puppy dog eyes/disapproval frown- the one that always makes Dean want to cry- Dean ends up swallowing the pill halves dry rather than be killed by Sam's pathos.

So see, that's exactly what Dean meant; was a beer too much to ask for? He thinks not. Sam is just a jerk sometimes, and no fun either.

Sam makes an exasperated huffing noise, and finally deigns to go around to the driver's side door and come in out of the cold. He stabs Baby's key at the ignition, but misses and has to do it again.

"Dude, what's your problem?" Dean asks.

"I'm no fun? You're dying of sepsis and your complaint is I'm not fun enough?"

Whoopsy. Musta voiced some of that tirade out loud. He should really shut up before he says something even dumber.

"Whatever, Sammy," his mouth continues on without him instead, "Point is, Alastair's one thing. I get he's a dick an' all, and Uriel, he says I belong in Hell, but he's a dick too. But what about Cas?"

Sam turns the ignition over too hard and the flywheel grinds. A muscle in his jaw ticks. His eyes reflect the orange-yellow light pollution of the overcast strip mall sky.

"Castiel threatened you with Hell?" he asks darkly.

Dean makes a dismissive motion with his shoulders. Cas isn't so bad. He and Dean are a lot alike, when you come right down to it; good soldiers with bad masters. And besides, way to miss the entire gist of Dean's argument.

"All I'm saying is, not like I wanna go back to Hell; it sucks down there big time. But people get what's coming to them."

"So, what, Dean? You belong in Hell because you could only stand twenty-nine years and eleven months of torture? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Sam peels out of the parking lot and onto the county highway. He puts _Agents of Fortune_ on Baby's ancient tape deck. Dean leans his head back and closes his eyes. His leg throbs in time with the backbeat.

"You don' even like Blue Öyster Cult, Sam."

"I was hoping you'd shut up and listen to it," Sam says dryly.

It's a decent plan. Dean gives it a go. It's hard to get comfortable past the intensity of his leg pain though. Behind his eyelids, the dark flares up intermittently gold and white, the colors of Dean's childhood; streetlight- night- streetlight- night- bright as the muzzle flash when he shot that poor Gibson kid. Brighter even; the kid'd been right on top of him, blocked most of it with his body. Fallen on Dean when he died, bled all over him, heavy and wet on Dean's rib cage.

Dean's eyes slit back open, and he yawns. Shutting up is overrated.

"How come we never go 'nywhere with real snow on Christmas?" he asks. The stuff falling from the sky seems more like sleet now, making little tinkling noises when it hits the windshield.

"None a' this slushy crap. Accu- mu..." The fever makes his tongue fuzzy and awkward. Too much work to manipulate around the long words. Must be creeping up into brain-frying territory again. "Like onna Chris'mas card."

"Monsters don't like the cold maybe? I don't know, Dean; how're you feeling?"

"Fine " Dean says.

Sam laughs outright, because he's rude like that.

"Sure," he says, amiable as can be, but there's something hard behind it Dean can't place. "But besides fine. You hot? Cold? How much does your leg hurt?"

"Dunno, Sam. Less'n Hell but more'n a vacation at Disneyworld."

"Great, don't let me take care of you," Sam mutters. He stares straight ahead at the highway with a pinched look on his face, the same one he wore so often during those last days before the hellhounds came.

" 's not like that, Sammy," Dean says.

But what it is like, he's not sure, and everything's all full of static inside him, like AM radio, so it’s hardly his fault he kinda gets stuck. The moment passes, and then there's nothing to say anyhow.

 

-*-*-

Sam pulls into a motel parking lot. Backlit green copperplate spells out _Hotel Zur Oper_ over the check-in entrance. The building is run down and the "e" on the sign is burned out, but the lot is almost full. In the bottom corner of a window with half shut venetian blinds, in smaller red neon, _no vacancy_ flashes.

"No room at th' inn," Dean points out.

"We'll see."

Sam slams Baby's door on his way out again. Dean doesn't try to follow him this time though. He learned his lesson at the drugstore. His teeth are starting to chatter, but the heat's turned on full blast.

He hopes the feral kid doesn't end up in Hell. Of the two of them, it's sure not the kid who deserves to be there. How Dean could warrant an assault on the Pit by honest to god angels (even if they are kinda dicks), he really can't figure, and the doubt slops around in his belly like viscous black tar, like Alastair when he'd wrap his true self around Dean, and slide down Dean's throat and guide his hands from the inside.

When Sam comes back out of the office he looks grimly satisfied, and has a key card in hand. He opens Dean's car door, and maneuvers Dean's feet out onto the icy, wet pavement.

Dean doesn't have the energy to ask how he got the registration guy to displace someone, but Sam tells him anyhow.

"Christmas miracle," he says first. But then he looks at Dean's face, and his mouth gets all cramped and pissy-looking, and he says, "Jesus, Dean, I just maxed out one of the credit cards, okay? No big deal, or is that too dark now too?"

He straddles Dean's legs, and grabs his hands and puts them bodily on his gigantic sasquatch shoulders. Melted snowflakes reflect the neon into tiny colored Christmas lights on his coat and in his hair.

"The owner runs an escort service out of the hotel. I bought a full night and sent the girl home. Merry Christmas."

He takes Dean under the arms, and heaves him up to standing like it's nothing.

Dean should make a joke about the escort, how only his monk of a brother would pay for the room and send the hooker home. He would've once, and Sam would've pretended to be offended, and it would've been comfortable. Nice. But his monk of a brother is banging a demon now, and Dean is tired, and what he really wants to say, is _how could you do this to me, Sam, dealing with demons when you knew I was in Hell._

But he knows who started it too, made the first deal, so he shuts his trap, and leans his weight on Sam's arm. The fireflies descend on him in a massive cartwheeling swarm, and the ocean migrates from California and roars in his ears. The truth is, he doesn't mind it so much this time though. 'Cause when his knees decide they can't be bothered to keep his legs vertical anymore, Sam's right there, and he just hauls Dean's arm over his shoulder and drag-walks him across the parking lot. He's warm and solid even through Dean's fever.

It's backwards that Sam's taking care of him instead of vice versa like it should be, but seeing as how Dean's about to lose consciousness, it's actually almost pleasant. Like being injured on a hunt, just him and Sam, back before; when Dean was still almost innocent and Sam was still reliable, instead of here one minute and off with his hell bitch the next.

"My hell bitch saved us both a trip downstairs with your creepy Picasso," Sam says flatly, "and Anna from the angels. Open your mouth."

Dean obeys, and Sam pops a thermometer in, and Dean realizes only then that he's in their hotel room, lying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling. When did that happen?

"104.8," Sam says, "Take these."

He takes them, doesn't ask what they are. He's pretty done with the whole caring about things part of the day. Sam bustles around the room wrestling Dean out of his overshirt, stabbing the inside of Dean's elbow with a needle, hanging some kind of IV bag off the floor lamp he dragged over next to Dean's bed, laying a freezing cold washcloth on Dean's forehead even though Dean's as cold as a witch's tit already, and patting Dean's sweaty hair like Dean's a sad little puppy and not a grown man whose fever is basically his own just desserts.

"Listen Dean, I need to look at your leg. Can you pull those sweatpants down past the swelling, or should I cut them off?"

Dean digs his good heel into the mattress and manages to lift his hips. His whole leg throbs when the pressure of its weight against the bed comes off the wound, but Sam pulls the sweats successfully past his ass and then Dean flops his butt back down on the bed and Sam inches the pants legs over Dean's injured thigh and off.

Dean adjusts his boxer briefs and rolls onto his side, bad leg up. Sam puts his hand, palm flat, over the wound, whistles low, says, "You need a hospital."

Dean grits his teeth. "Jus’ open it up so it can drain, Sam. 's nothing. I'd do it myself if I could reach."

Sam's quiet for a long time. The heater clicks on. Smells like burning mold.

Finally, he says, "It's... the wound is almost healed over. It's all infected underneath, way down your leg. I wouldn't know where to cut. I, uh." His voice is strained. "You're talking about surgery, Dean. You know you're not in Hell anymore, right? I can't just-"

Yeah, that's right.

It's only Sam here.

No angels, no demons, no Alastair praising Dean or hurting him, no one's terrible agenda, at least for the night. Just Sam, and Sam can't do that- cut Dean's leg. He doesn't know how. Thank fuck, he doesn't know how.

"Right," Dean says, "I'll uh, jus’ rest for now then. I'll be better by morning. From th’ antibiotics."

Sam looks doubtfully at the IV bag hanging above Dean's head. "You'll let me take you to the hospital if you're not?"

"Sure," Dean says.

"I'm not kidding, Dean. If you're still this sick in eight hours, we're going whether you like it or not."

It's an order of a sort, Dean guesses. _Get better or else._ But Sam sounds eerily like he did in middle school, when Dad'd leave Sam at Pastor Jim's and take Dean out on hunts. Sam'd chew on his lip and make them promise to come back safe. His voice would be fierce, but his eyes would slide away when they'd agree, already old enough to know promises like that are aspirations and nothing more.

"Sure, Sam. ‘Course."

They'll burn that bridge if they get to it.

 

-*-*-

Dean wakes from a nightmare, shaking and drenched in sweat. He knows for sure it was a dream, and not some new horrible version of reality, because Sam was screaming on the rack and Dean was holding a knife, and now Dean is shivering on a bed and Sam is holding Dean's hand.

Whatever Hell's made out of, it's a malleable place. Dean's gone to sleep in an Inquisition dungeon, and woken up in a hotel in Kansas with a grief counselor from Stanford calling to tell him Sam is dead. He's opened his eyes plenty of times to himself newly on the rack, to Sam there, their dad, Cassie, Bela, random strangers he's saved or failed to save, even Alastair once in a while. He's woken up in the Impala right before the T-bone, and in the hospital room where Dad died. Never once though has Dean woken to Sam sitting in a crappy motel armchair pulled up next to a suspicious smelling motel bed, holding Dean's hand while Dean sleeps.

Dean groans and rolls over onto his back. The hotel room is dim, blackout curtains open to reveal the parking lot, still night. Snow drifts through the dull glow of a sodium light on the far side of the lot. Dean's leg aches down to the bone, his sheets are gross and damp, and sweat is dripping into his eyes. Sam looks pale and tired even in the half-light, and his arm extended to Dean's bed is bent at a weird angle and can't be comfortable. His grip around Dean's hand though is warm and sure.

"Uh, Sam?" He shakes his hand a little to let Sam know he should stop being weird.

"You keep trying to pull your IV out," Sam explains. He pinches the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding Dean's. "It's this or tie you to the bed."

Dean's none too sure his grip on being alive and above ground would survive waking up in restraints. He's not even completely sure it'd survive having them applied. His cowardly heart tries to pound its way out of his chest, and his shaking gets worse as adrenaline pours itself all over his fever. He manages not to clasp Sam's giant paw like an anchor, but pulling his own hand away is beyond him.

"We're in a hotel in Hastings, Nebraska," Sam says, all matter-of-fact and flat-like.

So that's just great, then. Sam's treating him like a confused old geezer. And even better, Sam's not exactly wrong. Dean's only now realizing, after Sam's told him so, that he had no idea what state they were in, let alone what town.

"Okay," Dean says, 'cause he can't think of a better response. He appreciates knowing... maybe? But he also kinda wishes Sam would pretend nothing's wrong.

"It's December 24th, 2008. Well, 25th now. It's four am."

"Okay."

"If I go get you some percocet and a cold washcloth, are you gonna pull out your IV before I get back?"

That one at least, Dean can field. "Aww Sammy, you got me narcotics for Christmas; just what I always wanted."

Sam snorts and lets go of Dean's hand. Which is great. Exactly as it should be. If Dean feels a tiny bit cut adrift, well, he's a big boy, and he can handle it.

Sam flips on the light and disappears into the bathroom. Dean boosts himself painstakingly up to a semi-sitting position. Every muscle he owns is ridiculously weak, hurts like crazy, or both. His leg throbs like the sun in that one episode of Star Trek where it was gonna explode and wipe out the planet where Captain Kirk's hot girlfriend lived.

The smoke from outside the drug store drifts back into the edges of his vision. It curls around the legs of the crappy love seat and slithers along the walls and over the ugly generic art. It's frightening and wrong in ways he can't pin down; like demon smoke, but more diffuse. Intact salt lines protect the thresholds of the window and door, so Sam must've laid those down, but vents are often a vulnerability too, and not everything is stopped by salt. It freaks him out some, and he tries to just watch it, keep an eye on it 'til it either does something more threatening or Sam gets back from the bathroom and tells him _don't worry, it's only a..._ he can't think what, but Research Boy would know.

But Dean sits there, and his heart rate climbs, and he knows he's not thinking clearly, and fuck it-

"Saamm!"

The bathroom door flies open. Sam's Taurus is up and at the ready, his stance defensive and his eyes scanning the room for intruders. The smoke winks in and out of visibility like the Pleiades as Dean turns his head, its position so perfectly in sync with the movement of his eyes that, a beat too late to cover convincingly, his brain gets back with the program and determines there's nothing really there to be afraid of.

"Whoa, easy with the firepower. I gotta take a piss is all. Gimme a hand outta bed." It's not the most convincing excuse ever, but it's a hell of a lot better than _never mind, I'm hallucinating and chickenshit about Hell,_ so he'll just have to roll with it.

Sam glares at him.

"You have to piss," he says skeptically.

"Yeah."

Sam's eyes make a slow circuit of the room. Suspicious; looking for some hidden danger that Dean's for some reason now hiding. Dean tries not to look at the smoke. Sam's close enough that when Dean makes eye contact- like a normal, non-hallucinating person would do- the bottom edge of Dean's peripheral vision is right at Sam's thighs, so he looks like he's standing in translucent black quicksand.

"You called me out here like the final seal was in the mini-fridge because you need the bathroom."

"Yeah Sam, that's what I just freakin' said, isn't it? You gonna help me up or not?"

Sam scowls when he returns his gun to the back of his belt, but he helps Dean slide his bad leg over to the edge of the bed and off. They do the _alley oop_ thing again, and when Dean gets vertical, he's happy to find there's no head rush this time.

"Hey, no fireflies! I'm gettin' better."

"That's what you claimed while you were pulling your IV out too," Sam says irritably. Then concedes, "your speech sounds better though."

It's not a rousing endorsement, but whatever; Dean's up and about now, and he really does feel better, despite the pesky mystery smoke. He can't be responsible for half-asleep-Dean's confusion.

Sam guides him into the bathroom, IV held above his head. and gets him situated in front of the toilet with his hand on the towel rack for support. It's cheap motel standard in there, beige sink and toilet, bathtub too small to fit a tiny chick, let alone Sam or Dean, useless looking showerhead, threadbare towels.

"Can you stand here alone without fainting or do you need to sit down?" Sam asks.

"What, not gonna hold my hand, Nurse Nightingale?"

"Ha ha, Dean. Very funny." Sam slams the bathroom door on his way out. Third time (that Dean remembers) with the door slamming in one night. He's in a mood.

Dean does his business and hop-shuffles the few steps to the sink. The percocet bottle is open on the vanity, and there's an unwrapped, plastic water glass lying empty on its side in the basin, where Sam must've dropped it when Dean called for him.

Dean fills the glass, washes his hands, and pops two pills. Grabs his IV bag and hop-shuffles back to the bathroom door. His leg hurts pretty bad, and the exertion- because apparently pissing and walking a couple inches is exertion now- the exertion makes him break out in a cold sweat again. But he can probably make it back to the bed on his own if Sam's gonna be a jerk about it.

Sam's right on the other side of the door though, and he walks Dean back to bed, hauls his bad leg up for him, and puts a pillow under it. Hangs the IV bag back up on the lamp, tucks the covers around Dean's shivering body. Stands back with his arms crossed and observes his handiwork.

"You took your percocet?"

Dean tries to look grateful, though he suspects he's not pulling it off. Sam's been awesome to him all through this. Bitchy, sure, but who wouldn't be. "Yes, mom. I took my happy pills."

"Because there's tylenol in them, and you still have a fever."

"I took 'em, Sam; go to bed. You look like shit."

Sam eyes slide away from Dean, and he frowns a little, just barely. "I'll sleep better in the chair."

He gets himself a pillow from the unused bed, flicks off the light, and settles into the ugly checkerboard print armchair at Dean's bedside. Balls the pillow up against the wall and leans back and closes his eyes.

Dean stares up at the ceiling in the dim orange parking lot glow. Tiny wisps of smoke still mar the edges of his vision, but they're already better than when he woke up. Sam didn't take his temperature again, so even he must think Dean's improving. Either that or he's just too done to care.

"Uh, Sam?" Talking's always easier in the dark. Well, not talking per se; Dean was born glib. But actually communicating? That's easier if you don't have to watch the other person's reactions; notice when they're disappointed, or when you've hurt them, or they want to get away.

"Mmm?" Sam says. He keeps his eyes closed, hands folded over his belly like he might actually somehow sleep in that supremely uncomfortable-looking chair.

"You know you don't gotta do all this for me, right?" Dean offers. "I mean, okay, some of it, yes. I get I might not've made it across the parking lot. But all this extra stuff- if it's pissing you off or whatever, I'll uh."

He has to stop and clear his throat, because the truth is, how Sam's been watching out for him, doing things for him; it feels good. It's not fair maybe. Better than he deserves. But it thaws the parts of him that have been chronically frozen since Hell, and eases the ones that feel burned.

"Anyhow," he finishes, leaving the middle blank, because there's too much to fit in there, "you don't have to."

Sam is quiet. The snow outside in the parking lot has gotten heavier, sticking to the hoods of the cars, and making little white islands of the slush piles on the wet blacktop.

Dean closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. If Sam's not gonna talk, then he's not gonna talk. They can fight about it tomorrow. Dean's leg still throbs, but it's starting to take on that distant quality that comes with narcotics, like the pain belongs to someone else.

"Why won't you let me take care of you, Dean?"

"Huh?" That's... not what Dean was expecting. An annoying voice inside him points out Sam made a similar complaint earlier, during the car ride, but Sam complains about everything, and besides, he's been doing nothing but taking care of Dean 24/7 these past couple days, and who would want to do that?

He rolls over so he's facing Sam, the cover of darkness a little less awesome now that it turns out he hasn't a clue what Sam's on about. " 'the fuck are you talking about, Sam? You _are_ taking care of me. You shouldn't have to; that's all I meant. It's not your job."

"But why isn't it?" Sam asks. "Why do you keep saying-"

Sam cuts himself off with a frustrated huff. Fidgets restlessly in his chair.

"Dean, I _want_ to help you. You think I don't get it, about Hell. And it’s true you're different now sometimes, and I don't always understand. But you don't know what it was like for me either. I couldn't- I was so sure I could save you, but then-"

Ah. This, Dean understands all too well.

"I couldn't do anything, Dean, and now-"

"Okay, Sam."

"If you die, I-" Sam voice is thick and wet, and it makes Dean's chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with the physical.

"I can't go through it again," Sam says miserably. "I just can't. So stop saying you're fine all the time, and you don't need anything, and besides you belong in Hell anyway, so who cares. 'Cause I do, okay?"

Sam snuffles just a tiny bit, though it's obvious he's trying not to. He wipes a hand across his face, and that's it for Dean, slain by his gigantic little brother's pathos after all.

He wants to go over and hug him ‘til he falls asleep, like he did back when Sam was little, but even in the half-light he can see Sam's blinking too fast, embarrassed and trying to hold himself together.

"Yeah," Dean settles for instead, "yeah, okay, Sam. I’m sorry. It's gonna be fine. I won't die; I promise."

 

-*-*-

When Dean wakes the next time, it's to the smell of cinnamon and the sound of Christmas music turned down low on the clock radio. He opens his eyes, and the room is bright with daylight. Outside, it's sunny and cloudless. While Dean slept, the snow from last night gave up on melting, and the parking lot is softly blanketed in white, like a postcard of New England.

Sam is sleeping on the other bed, though he still has all his clothes on, including his muddy boots, and he never turned down the polyester bedspread, just flopped down on top of it like an unnaturally tall sack of potatoes. His mouth is hanging open and all the pinched hardness he never puts down when he's awake anymore is gone. In the corner of the room is a huge, bushy Christmas tree, complete with lights and mall store-perfect ornaments.

Dean scoots himself up to sitting with his back against the headboard. His leg still hurts like fire, but it's noticeably better than when he fell asleep. His IV's out, and there's a neat bandaid Sam must've applied on his inner elbow. The needle insertion site was a literal pinprick, a speck of dust to the mountains of injuries they routinely ignore, but if it makes Sam feel better, then hey, Dean can tolerate a little coddling.

There are percocet by his bed and a full glass of water, so Dean takes them and listens to Christmas morning radio for a while. It's an oldies station; Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Brenda Lee. It's nice.

Sam stirs eventually. He sits up on the edge of his bed and stretches.

" 'Morning," he says. "How're you feeling, Dean?"

"Fit as a fiddle and raring to go."

Sam ignores it, concentrates on doing whatever he does to his hair in the morning to make his ridiculous bedhead go away, but Dean corrects himself anyhow. "Well, still pretty terrible, if we're getting technical, but" -he shrugs easily- "a lot better. Where'd you get the tree? It looks... weirdly normal."

The corners of Sam's eyes crinkle up, and a tiny tilt to his mouth says he's trying not to smile. "I stole it from the continental breakfast room after you fell asleep. Got you a couple cinnamon rolls and some Frosted Flakes too. And eggnog if you want it."

"Wow, strong showing, Father Christmas. Is it spiked?"

Sam flattens his mouth out primly for about 2.3 seconds total before he breaks and his dimples come out in force.

"Yes?" Dean asks. "That's a yes? At" -he squints at the alarm clock- "11:09 am? This whole being crippled thing's not as terrible as I thought. Bring it here."

"You're not gonna brush your teeth first?" Sam's nose scrunches up with disgust, so it's totally worth how bad the first few gulps of eggnog will taste. "That's really gross. But whatever you say."

He heads over to the mini-fridge, pulls out a carton of off-brand eggnog, and pours some into two hotel plastic cups. He’s got a bottle of rum too, and he tops the cups off liberally, brings one over to Dean like a waiter.

Dean takes a drink and his eyes actually water. Holy Jesus, is that strong.

"I got you something," Sam says. He digs a plastic Gas-N-Sip bag out from under the Stepford perfect Christmas tree, gives it to Dean, and sits down on the bed across from Dean’s to watch Dean ‘unwrap’ his present.

Dean turns it over in his hands. Inside the Gas-N-Sip bag is another Gas-N-Sip bag, and inside that is a thin stack of magazines. Dean pulls the pile out, lays them on his lap to peruse. The top one is an issue of _Busty Asian Beauties_. Dean's favorite cover model is on the front, with pink and red flowers in her hair, wearing a skimpy sundress that accentuates very nicely why she keeps getting repeat gigs. It doesn't escape Dean that he got Sam dirty magazines for Christmas last year- forty years ago- before he went to Hell. He's forgotten a lot, been in Hell longer than he's lived on Earth. But that last Christmas he remembers just fine.

"You got me porn. Thanks, Sam. That's really sweet."

Sam looks down at his hands and smiles sadly.

Dean transfers the magazine to the bottom of the pile. The next one up is-

... _Busty Asian Beauties._ The cover model is pretending to play volleyball on a tropical beach, huge bazoombas falling out of her tiny excuse for a bikini.

Dean flips to the next one down in the stack.

 _Busty Asian Beauties._ The model sucks lasciviously on a red, white, and blue popsicle, and Dean looks at the date in the top right corner of the magazine. July, 2008.

There are four of them, because of course there are. May, June, July, August. Jesus, Sam.

"I uh," Sam clears his throat. "Saw the first one when I stopped for gas, right after I, um. Buried your body. And it kinda made me smile almost, and I thought I'd give it to you when I saved you. But then..."

He trails off, and goes over to the mini-fridge. Gets the eggnog out, pours himself another plastic cupful, adds a generous helping of rum, and gulps down half of it in one go.

"Anyway, I'd go to the Gas-N-Sip, and they'd have the new one. I kinda hate them now, but I kept thinking _probably this month_ , so then I'd end up buying one."

"They're awesome, Sam. I love ‘em," Dean says.

"They're dumb." Sam shrugs. "You want another?"

Dean holds out his cup and Sam pours for him.

"After you got back, and we weren't getting along, it seemed stupid, so they've just been sitting at the bottom of my laundry bag."

"Smells like it too," Dean says, and that gets a snort from Sam.

Dean sips his eggnog. It's rich and sweet, and the high potency makes him want to cough. He's pretty happy, actually.

"You want some Frosted Flakes?" Sam asks. He heads for the counter above the mini-fridge. Frosted Flakes are Dean's favorite, and besides, he's supposed to be helping Sam by getting waited on like the Prince of Persia or whatever, so far be it from him to decline.

Sam breaks open two miniature boxes of Tony the Tiger and pours their contents into styrofoam bowls. He roots around in the mini-fridge and pulls out two of those half pint milk cartons they used to get through the school lunch program when the money'd get tight.

He's got one open and is about to pour when Dean says, "Hey, I'll have mine with eggnog."

Sam turns around with a blank look on his face that, surrounded by his shaggy hair as it is, reminds Dean of nothing so much as a stunned cow. Only bigger of course, 'cause it’s Sam.

"What?" Sam says.

"Eggnog. On my cereal. It's Christmas. How do you not know about that?"

"Dean, that's.... You're making that up. And also it's really disgusting."

"No, Sam. It's really Christmasy. Live a little."

Sam's sets his shoulders like he's about to charge a vampire lair- which is hilarious, 'cause how bad can it be?- and pours eggnog and rum over both bowls of Frosted Flakes. He's smiling though when he turns around to bring one to Dean.

"They taught you this in Hell, didn't they? For the really hard cases."

Dean snorts. Sam hands him one of the bowls. Clumps of cereal float around half-heartedly, unsure whether to sink or not in their extra-thick sea of holiday cheer.

"And to think, I didn't get you anything," Dean jokes. But then adds, more seriously, "I really didn't. Sorry, Sam. I haven't been at my best."

"I haven't either; it's fine." Sam sits down on the edge of his bed, and tries his eggnog cereal. If it's hideous, he shows no signs of it.

"Besides," he says, offhand, "Cas kinda blew everything else out of the water anyhow, giftwise." He crunches on his globs of flakes contemplatively.

“Cas was here?” That’s weird. Dean can’t pretend he wouldn’t have slept through Cas winging his way in, seeing as how he slept through Sam putting up a giant Christmas tree. But he thought Cas was being watched for disloyalty or whatever. Delivering holiday presents to Sam ‘Abomination’ Winchester seems like it’d go over poorly.

“Not today. Before," Sam says though.

He coughs, and applies himself to his disgusting cereal with such fervor that it can only be an excuse not to look Dean in the eye. The tips of his ears turn faintly pink, and then Dean figures it out.

“Oh my God, Sam, you literal freaking girl. You mean I was your gift.”

“Do not,” Sam says, while hiding behind his hair, and shoveling cereal into his face.

“Yes, you do. You’re a cheap drunk, and you totally mean me. Gonna write me a poem now too?”

“Can’t you ever shut up, Dean?”

“Can’t *I* shut up? I don't think me running my mouth is the problem here, Sam. Next time I’ll tell Cas to put a bow on my head if you want though.”

Sam is starting to grin now too.

“You cannot prove I said any of this,” he laughs, "But tell him a huge pink one, right on the top where your brain should be."

He shakes his head ruefully, and slurps down the remaining few spoonfuls of cornflake mush at the bottom of his bowl. “Man, did I put too much rum in the eggnog.”

Dean eyes his own bowl skeptically. Sam ate it all, so it can’t be that terrible. And obviously, Dean has to down at least as much as Sam did, so as not to be a total pussy. Which in this case means the whole bowl, like it or not.

Sam is watching him as he scoops up a spoonful.

"There's not gonna be a next time though," he says, almost solemn, and looks Dean dead in the eye. "Alastair can't have you. I'm gonna send him wherever monsters go when they’re too evil for Hell."

“Cool by me,” Dean says, and puts it resolutely out of his mind. Alastair’s a problem for another day.

He takes his bite of cornflake stuff, and it’s sort of strange. The texture's off, and it's too sweet and a little too harsh from the alcohol too. The ingredients don't go together right, and the flakes clump up from the stickiness of the eggnog.

But that's not the weird thing; Dean was expecting all that.

The weird thing is Dean’s sick and in pain, and he shot a kid last week and will no doubt shoot more before he finally croaks again and goes back Downstairs. The world’s on the brink of disaster, and Sam and Dean have a stolen Christmas tree and four porno mags for presents between them. Their big Christmas meal is some bizarre concoction Dean made up as a joke.

And not only is it not terrible, it’s downright delicious.

“Huh,” Dean says, “that’s not too bad.”

Sam smiles again, and Dean’s content, and here they are, the two of them. Together.

 

~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy holidays to all, and may we all find a life filled with health, kindness, joy, and love, in whatever forms they come to us.


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